“It is paramount that lawmakers have deep frank discussions about what regulatory frameworks will best protect public health and safety, end the underground market and ensure a fair marketplace,” he said.

Evans’ organization has proposed making it legal to buy and use marijuana and edible drug-laced products in private, to smoke in cannabis “cafes” and to grow six plants per person at home. It also proposes setting up a Cannabis Control Commission, taxing marijuana sales via a 3.75 percent excise tax on top of sales tax, plus a local tax of up to 2 percent. Voters could vote on those ideas later this year.

The question for lawmakers, said Campaign chairman Dick Evans at the hearing, isn’t “whether” to legalize it, but “how,” according to the State House News Service.

“It’s coming one way or another,” Bill Downing of the pro-legalization MassCann said at the hearing Wednesday, the News Service reported. “I just hope the Legislature takes the reins and does it right."

But right now, the Campaign is focusing on teaching people in power about what it calls the benefits of legal marijuana, its spokesman said.

“We do want to work with them even if it’s an informational campaign,” said Jim Borghesani, the group’s communications director, in an interview.

At the same time, a group of legislators this week were dispatched to Colorado to learn more about the legal-pot industry in a state that for the past two years has let citizens buy handfuls of weed like Bay Staters buy six-packs.

Right now, the State House does not appear friendly to marijuana. House Speaker Robert DeLeo does not support legalization, nor does Gov. Charlie Baker. The Senate’s president, Stan Rosenberg, hasn’t said publicly what his stance is on the issue.